The closing process and Income Summary account Accounting Guide

Learn accounting fundamentals and how to read financial statements with CFI’s free online accounting classes. Printing Plus has a $4,665 credit balance in its Income Summary account before closing, so it will debit Income Summary and credit Retained Earnings. © Rice University OpenStaxCC BY-NC-SA Why are these two figures the same? The income statement summarizes your income, as does income summary. If both summarize your income in the same period, then they must be equal.

Notice that the https://www.bookstime.com/s in the expense accounts are now zero and are ready to accumulate expenses in the next period. The Income Summary account has a new credit balance of $4,665, which is the difference between revenues and expenses in Figure 1.29. The balance in Income Summary is the same figure as what is reported on Printing Plus’s Income Statement. You need to use closing entries to reduce the value of your temporary accounts to zero. That way, your next accounting period does not have a balance in your revenue or expense account from the previous period.

What is the purpose of an income summary account?

The account of income summary is used for closing-entry recording at the end of an accounting period. Companies report revenues and expenses on a periodic basis rather than continually, and account balances for one period are not added to those for the next period. The purpose of an income summary account is to close the books.

Alright, so those are temporary accounts being our income statement accounts plus dividends that are permanent accounts. Well, these are accounts that hold balances from period to period. Okay, balance sheet accounts, you can think there’s some cash balance last year, but we’re not going to zero out the cash, right? We still have that cash and the next year, we’re gonna have a different amount of cash or somehow the same amount of cash whatever it might be. There’s always gonna be some balance in the cash account and we’re gonna leave it year over year.

How are these Prepared?

If the Income Summary Account in Income Summary before closing is a debit balance, you will credit Income Summary and debit Retained Earnings in the closing entry. This situation occurs when a company has a net loss. If the balance in Income Summary before closing is a credit balance, you will debit Income Summary and credit Retained Earnings in the closing entry. This situation occurs when a company has a net income. Companies are required to close their books at the end of each fiscal year so that they can prepare their annual financial statements and tax returns.

Retained earnings maintains a $4,565 credit balance. The post-closing T-accounts will be transferred to the post-closing trial balance, which is step 9 in the accounting cycle. Income summaries are temporary accounts that net all the revenue and expenses accounts to determine whether there was a credit balance or debit balance . They make it easier for businesses to transition revenues and expenses into the balance sheet. Income summary is an account in which the balances of temporary accounts, i.e., revenues and expenses accounts, are transferred at the end of the accounting year. It is also a temporary account, closed to retained earnings account.

Company

Companies prepare an income summary and an income statement at the end of an accounting period. As you can see, the income and expense accounts are transferred to the income summary account. If the resulting balance in the income summary account is a debit balance, then the same amounts to a net loss, which is also transferred into the retained earnings account.

• ” Could we just close out revenues and expenses directly into retained earnings and not have this extra temporary account?
• This can be done by debiting revenue accounts and crediting expense accounts.
• The income summary account is also used when a company chooses to close the books using an income statement.
• It does not tell you about the cash flow situation of a company.

The income summary account is recorded by debiting revenue accounts and crediting expense accounts. Close the income statement accounts with debit balances to the income summary account. After all revenue and expense accounts are closed, the income summary account’s balance equals the company’s net income or loss for the period. An income summary is a temporary account in which all the revenue and expenses accounts’ closing entries are netted at the accounting period’s end. The resulting balance is considered a profit or loss.